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I remember when I really fell in love with Jester King sours. Years ago I volunteered at Jester King with my good friend Mark on a bottling day. Turns out it was a Funk Metal day which is an amazing beer to bottle. Back then, the volunteers got to take some of the failed QC (almost always underfills or busted labels) bottles home. The other benefit was being able to drink Jester King beer on the job. It so happened that along with Black Metal Stout (non-farmhouse, aka OG BMS) and the ever present Le Petite Prince they had Salt Lick Saison, renamed Censored Saison due to the ridiculous laws here in Texas which don’t allow breweries to endorse a product by putting the name on the label. The massive level of smoke was initially too much but strong sour really wom me over; the combination was amazing. At the end of my shift I knew why Jester King prefers something light like Le Petite as I was feeling the 6% smoked saison. Salt Lick Saison hasn’t been produced since that summer but the other smoked beers by Jester King, namely Gotslandricka, has similar levels of smokiness and a touch of sour.

My cellar is almost bare of these great smoked sours so I decided it was time to brew something of my own. Last summer Jester King brewed Black Metal Stout for the first time in years and due to the time of the year, winter, the cold fermentation favored sour acid production resulting in an amazing combination of roast and sour. In this homebrew I’m hoping to clone that combination and add some smoke as well.

This is my first experiment with smoking my own malt. Cursory reading of the homebrew forums indicated that a low temperature, about 100F, is best, as is the use of some sprayed water to help the malt absorb the smoke. I didn’t make my own basket but I did find a sink colander which does the right thing for exposing the malt to the smoke. I smoked 15# of Maris Otter, roughly 50% of the base malt bill in the Black Metal Stout recipe for approximately 45 minutes with a combination of oak and mesquite smoke. Only time will tell if this was enough, or too much (ha!).

I’ll be sure to report back on how this one turned out. Happy New Year!